I'm getting pretty stoked for Falling Sky and dug out my old dog-eared copy of Caesar's Commentaries from the seventies. The print is tiny and I seem to recall even now the translation was a bit too stiff and scholarly for my taste.

So can anyone recommend a good flowing translation, preferably available on Kindle?

Hi Ernie! We used Oxford translation from the 1990s by Carolyn Hammond and enjoyed it very much.

Thanks, reviewers at Amazon noted several times that this translation is, "the most readable" and not "overly pedantic". so I'm going to give it a whirl. My old edition definitely falls into the 'pedantic' category.

I like reading Icelandic Sagas and nothing turns a huge axe-wielding viking out for revenge into a small bespectacled schoolmaster with a grudge faster than an overly scholarly translation...

There must have been a moment at the beginning, where we could have said no. Somehow we missed it. Well, we'll know better next time.

Great thread, I would love to read Caesar's commentaries some day. Bookmarked.

As a supplement in preparation for Falling Sky, I'd also recommend checking outThe Military Life of Julius Caesar: Imperatorby Trevor Nevitt Dupuy.

As the title implies it's very broad; there are a couple chapters on the Gallic Rebellions. The book is nicely readable and concise, and has some good maps. My copy is a used one from about 20 years ago, I think it's OOP now but you can find used copies on Amazon for ~$3 or $4.

I read Commentarii de Bello Gallico in the original Latin. I love Caesar's weird sentence structures and constant use of a super-reflexive.

His sentences would roughly translate into English as: I, myself, Caesar accomplished whatever feat. I guess he wanted to make sure that there was no ambiguity as to who did things.

That's an interesting comment as the Commentaries were essentially works of propaganda/self promotion.

I've always wondered if Caesar actually wrote the commentaries himself or had a ghostwriter on his staff. Just as I wonder if he happened to have an exceptionally brilliant engineer on his staff. Bridges across the Rhine and the siege lines at Alesia etc. were no routine matters.

Caesar had the resources to give individual bribes of millions of sesterces to already rich politicians, so it stands to reason he would have the best professional men of his era on his staff. Of course bridging the Rhine was as much a political act as a military one so in a work like the Gallic War Caesar gets the credit, not Naughtius Sextus Maximus the genius engineer...

How much of Caesar's "genius" was due to his professional staff? Of course getting the best men of the era on your staff and letting them do their jobs and use their imagination is pretty brilliant as well...

I read Commentarii de Bello Gallico in the original Latin. I love Caesar's weird sentence structures and constant use of a super-reflexive.

His sentences would roughly translate into English as: I, myself, Caesar accomplished whatever feat. I guess he wanted to make sure that there was no ambiguity as to who did things.

That's an interesting comment as the Commentaries were essentially works of propaganda/self promotion.

I've always wondered if Caesar actually wrote the commentaries himself or had a ghostwriter on his staff. Just as I wonder if he happened to have an exceptionally brilliant engineer on his staff. Bridges across the Rhine and the siege lines at Alesia etc. were no routine matters.

Caesar had the resources to give individual bribes of millions of sesterces to already rich politicians, so it stands to reason he would have the best professional men of his era on his staff. Of course bridging the Rhine was as much a political act as a military one so in a work like the Gallic War Caesar gets the credit, not Naughtius Sextus Maximus the genius engineer...

How much of Caesar's "genius" was due to his professional staff? Of course getting the best men of the era on your staff and letting them do their jobs and use their imagination is pretty brilliant as well...

It was definitely written in a style that was more accessible to the common man than typical writings of the time (such as Cicero's orations).

G. Julius Caesar was a champion of the Populares movement, and knew how to relate with the commoner. It would not have surprised me if he penned the commentaries himself, or at least had editorial oversight (especially on stylistic choices of language).